


Touch The Other Side

by Sevent



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Age Difference, Groping, Implied/Referenced Underage Relationship(s), M/M, Older Man/Younger Man, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 03:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevent/pseuds/Sevent
Summary: “Let go of me,” the boy repeats, stronger, not ready to accept those dark, loathsome thoughts. Not when the man responsible for them is standing right in front of him.But then Slade tilts his head and runs that offending hand further down, fully gripping one asscheek. An embarrassingly high yelp follows up like clockwork. Slade has only one thing to say.“Only if you make me.”Written for a kink prompt: "groping"





	Touch The Other Side

They were fighting again, the fifth time this week on another dingy, half-rotted rooftop of Blüdhaven. It was becoming something of a recurring thing. Dick didn’t mean for it to happen the second time, or any time since, but when Deathstroke drove himself to a determined fate, he was impossible to stop. One could only take the brunt of that tireless willpower and hope it doesn’t end in a body bag.  

On the last leg of their brawl, Dick lands a vicious right kick on Deathstroke's shin and, unsurprisingly, it barely weakens the man’s stance. The fight had stretched on for too long. He's exhausted from fighting and working and hunting criminals, and there’s no way for him to come out of this on top. Dick’s body shakes from the effort to keep going, breath running hard through his nose as he tries to keep the merc in one place. Deathstroke— _Slade_ moves forward to retaliate and Dick almost expects a hard slap of a gauntleted fist to meet his chest but no, it’s much worse. His adversary faints a move, forcing Dick to take a step to the side where he has no room to react in time and—  

A strange hand falls just a little too deliberately over his ass. 

It wasn’t a push. Didn’t even tip him off-balance. Just a hand persistently urging the ex-Robin up and close where he can’t use his deft legs to sweep Slade off his feet in sudden, blinding rage. 

“Let go of me.” Dick tries to shake off the hand but Slade won't allow it. The worst part is that Dick truly and honestly craves the touch. The heavy press of a large body keeping him still, trapped, centered. It's far too familiar to bygone times when he had worked dutifully alongside the Bat. All those years thrown off his feet and pressed down onto the cold, petrified floor of the cave. All those times bested, sweating through his training clothes, floored by the heavy weight of a man ten years his senior. But that was different. _He_ would never hurt him, not like that. Not like he’d dreamed of and yearned for in his volatile, heated youth. 

Deathstroke, however.

If Slade decides to wipe the floor with Dick and force him onto his knees, at his feet, as his bloodied hands searched for more than just a suggestive grope of his backside, he could. Dick can’t overpower him. His heart beats a little faster, acknowledging the reality of the situation. “Let go of me,” the boy repeats, stronger, not ready to accept those dark, loathsome thoughts. Not when the man responsible for them is standing right in front of him. 

But then Slade tilts his head and runs that offending hand further down, fully gripping one asscheek. An embarrassingly high yelp follows up like clockwork. Slade has only one thing to say. 

“Only if you make me.” 

Dick can’t. Yes, his fists are perfectly within range of Slade’s stupid mask. His hands still work. The young man can still fight from this close position no matter how uncomfortable it might be. But, that part of him that’s really, really enjoying these inopportune meetups roars in the back of his head, turning everything else into static noise. This close he can smell Slade’s trick smoke canisters, propped on the belt of his bicep for a quick escape. The catches in the mask are visible, and Dick could touch them, take the troublesome thing off, see Slade’s face for the first time in—God, it’s been a whole year. They’ve kept to their borders, Dick in his territory, Slade prowling around Gotham’s waters and the rest of the world. The merc has purposely kept his hands and his business off of Blüdhaven, given the kid his privacy, his space to grow and discover who he really wants to be. What he wants to become in this corner of the world. Without him.

And of course the instant Nightwing’s made a reputation for himself in the city, Deathstroke has to take a job offer where their fists can meet and his nimble fingers can catch the little bird's sweet little body again. Like he hasn’t already imprinted the shape of his hands and his fists on Dick’s flesh, inside him, into his very soul. 

The hand propped roughly on Dick’s ass stays put. Dick does nothing but lower his head, shame bubbling up his throat and threatening to spill out of his mouth like sweet Penance in a confessional. He’s not religious in any significant level—the ecclesiastic thought comes to him unbidden—, but Slade reaps a guilty, god-fearing feeling in him that has everything to do with the Bat’s shadow looming over his every action.

One single eye gleams in the weak fluorescent lights of the city, its flashing blue hues streaking through the helmet's single opening. 

“What do you want,” the boy—he would always be just a boy next to Slade—whispers between them. His voice caught on a slight crack, betrayed the perilous state of his composure. A different hand slips up and over the tight-coiled muscle of his abdomen straight over his chest. The caress is featherlight whereas the other rests like an immovable anchor mooring him to the bay. Not gentle, but unhurried. Dick ignores it, or tries to ignore it as best he could, knowing Slade's using the silence as a moment to consider his answer and allow Dick time to wrestle himself back under control. 

Slade changes his grip to land on the boy’s lithe waist. It is both a relief and a terrible loss to Dick’s frayed senses. 

“I’ve only ever wanted one thing from you, my boy.” The merc punctuates the implication tossed between them with a forward push, tipping Dick one step back where a large TV station antenna with its metal casing serves as a barrier between Dick's freedom and his captor. His breath leaves him all at once from the surprise and Dick has to suck life back into his lungs when those terrible, greedy hands run circles down his jumpsuit-covered thighs. The fabric does nothing to protect him from the warming touch. Dick might as well have been running naked around rooftops, windswept and freezing, waiting for someone furnace-hot like Slade to bury a fire inside his bones. The suit frees up mobility, next to the familiar memory of his young, acrobatic years. Right now, though, he hates how little it shields him from the old man’s touch, simultaneously basking in the absolute warmth it grants him. 

“You were always the best of them,” Slade croons right above his ear, cryptically referring to some _other_ priced escapades. As he spoke, Slade slid the cool surface of the helmet’s cheek over the exposed skin of the boy's forehead. “And the most sensitive.”

Some of that anger comes flooding back and the snarl that left Dick snaps Slade’s head back instinctively. “If you still think I’m that _sensitive boy—“_

The metallic sigh reverberating inside the helmet surprises Dick. Next thing he hears is the click of a locking mechanism going off as Slade lets one hip go in favor of removing the thing completely. Dick’s head spun for a second, the face in front of him bringing back old memories, of simpler times. Of kinder times. Slade hadn’t removed his signature mask the previous nights. The white hair still catches him off guard. It always would. That and the soft wrinkles that never seem to change or grow around Slade’s eyes, even now. A whole year later. 

“I know you’re not a child anymore,” Slade hums with appreciation coloring his voice. A smirk Dick can still recreate perfectly in his mind’s eye overcomes the merc’s face. "You haven’t been for a long time, I think.”

Dick scoffs, pretends that his face isn’t turning red hot under the domino mask from the smoldering heat of Slade’s single-eyed gaze. Sweat-spotted skin almost glimmers in the lights of nearby ad displays. The two of them stand exposed and yet hidden, silhouetted by the city's many vibrating electric screens. To anyone standing at a high enough angle, they might as well be negative space. Sturdy hands return to his sides to keep him from squirming, or running. Whatever it might be his body thrums with, like the ever-changing displays hanging on skyscraper walls and busy intersections. Dick feels the electric hum in his nerves, once more like Blüdhaven’s heart beating through him, claiming him. 

Scarring him.

“What do you want,” Dick asks again, but this time it’s framed to mean something else. Something with intent. He knows that Slade wants him. Knows he can’t run away from that any more than his own legs fail to become anything other than weak putty against the metal frame of the antenna holding him up. 

Slade’s smile turns to sharp canines. He moves to hover just over the junction between the boy's jaw and neck. “Whatever you’re willing to give me this time."

_Nothing, not again,_ Dick thinks with powerful vehemence. It will end this time. They cannot continue this charade, this ugly game of cat and mouse, of bullets and grapple hooks and crinkled notes inked with we’ll-meet-agains. 

_Everything, anything,_  a bleeding, beaten part of him screams, aching for this missing piece of him to be restored. If this is what will keep Slade from killing tonight. If this is what will keep them together just a little bit longer. Remembering kinder times. 

For the fifth time that week, Dick opens his arms and lets the man take. If it might replace something long-broken, if he might wrap them around the man’s blackened heart, he would. This is what he can give. This is what he can offer. Total surrender, in these private moments.

The arms rise high over Slade’s shoulders and the strain bends Dick’s back into the grasping hands. He gives only one demand. 

“Just…don’t hold back.” Not this time, not the next time. Not the many myriad of times they will continue this deadly gamble of a dance. 

Slade levels him with a half-mast stare, half his face—his sightless side—shrouded in the negative dark space that's turned away from Blüdhaven’s latest neon-signed waterfront sales pitch. Dick shivers and remembers how the strong hands still holding him, still rubbing hard, insistent circles over his thighs and hips, had brought him to sickening completion just yesternight. And in Slade’s mind, the merc does forgive postponing the hit he’s meant to fulfill on one of Blüdhaven’s many unsavory powerhouse businessmen. For another night with his little grown bird. Like a man drowning in self-indulgence. Just one more sip, one more taste. 

“My dear boy, I’ll never leave you wanting.” 

And when Slade closes the space between them, Dick drowns a little with him. 

**Author's Note:**

> One year later, I'm trying to get back into writing. This was a great little exercise I made with a friend that really took off. Word wars are fun!


End file.
